Weddings

The Kellie Beach and Keegan Sims Wedding

Two Peekskill natives throw a luxurious Tappan Hill Mansion wedding.

Kellie and Keegan’s history dates back to their childhood days. They both grew up in Peekskill and, while they attended different schools, they both went to the same church.

They began dating in high school, but afterwards amicably went their own separate ways to explore the world as they each saw ﬁt. Keegan’s journey took him to the West Coast to become a business analyst at Direct TV, and Kellie remained in New York and became an attorney.

Their bond reunited them a decade after graduating high school, when Keegan ran into Kellie’s brother at their ten year high school reunion. After mentioning it to his sister, Kellie reached out to Keegan and their relationship picked up right where it left off a decade earlier.

They were dating for three years when, during a visit to the Bahamas to celebrate Keegan’s birthday in April of 2011, he proposed on the beach as they were lying on lounge chairs taking in the beautiful scenery all around them.

“I quietly enjoyed the rest of April of that year, but then very actively began the wedding planning on May first,” Kellie says. “I was on the phone all day long most days making calls to different vendors. One of the most essential things on my to-do list was ﬁnding the right photographer, because I think the pictures are such an important part of the wedding day. I must have met with ten different photographers until I found the one who ﬁt the vision and theme I wanted.”

Kellie knew she always wanted a daytime wedding, and describes her theme as “crisp and clean without being too modern.” Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown ﬁt the exact mood and feel she was striving for, and became the venue for their wedding of 150 people.

Kellie handled all of the planning herself, as she was living in New York and Keegan was in California, along with the invaluable help and input from her mom, “whose opinion’s I truly trust and value,” she says.

Being that her favorite color is purple, the colors for the day were plum and grey. “The longest meeting I had was with the ﬂorist. At ﬁrst I wanted the ﬂowers to be all white,” Kellie says, “but a month before the wedding date I had a change of heart and switched the colors to plum and lavender, like my bridesmaid’s dresses.”

For music, they chose a ﬂutist and pianist for the ceremony, and a jazz ensemble during the cocktail hour. They opted for a DJ for the reception, however, because “I needed to have some Mary J. Blige and Beyoncé, and those are two very difﬁcult voices to duplicate,” Kellie says.Kellie’s wedding dress was a satin, form-ﬁtting mermaid style dress by Pronovias, which she laughs, “was totally different from what I thought I would choose.” Wanting to be more comfortable for the reception and for dancing, she cleverly opted for a second dress inspired by Marilyn Monroe’s famously depicted knee-length white dress from the movie The Seven Year Itch, but with added embellishments like a sash and rhinestones.

No matter how much you plan, one thing you can never rely on is the weather, and Kellie acknowledged that while she was “super disappointed in the rain that day,” because she loves the outdoors and sunlight. “It really taught me that there are some things that are simply out of my control and to just let go and really enjoy the moment" she says. "So, while the guests weren’t able to be outside for any part of the day, everything else exceeded my expectations”.

Some special touches the couple added to make it uniquely theirs was a cigar roller, which Kellie says “Keegan absolutely loved"; the fact that her old secretary sang Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be” during the ceremony; and a fun dessert of apple pie in a mason jar with ice cream on top.

Holding out as long as she could, Kellie moved out to Los Angeles to be with her new husband after their magical honeymoon in Italy and they are excitedly expecting their ﬁrst child in July of this year.